Triple H on How the Pedigree Became his Finisher!!
Legendary WWE Superstar Triple H sat down with FOX sports recently and talked about his finished “Pedigree”- how he envisioned it, why he moved from his other finisher in WWE and how did he feel when Seth Rollins started using it. You can check the video below.
How did He Envision the Pedigree?
Hunter starts the discussion of how he came up with the Pedigree as his finisher and says, “The Pedigree, for me, started when I was training with Killer Kowolski. I have seen a lot of old-timers [like] Kowolski to do a spot where he put a guy’s head between his knees and he would jump and just jar their neck. And it dawned on me that if he kept going straight down to knees, it was like a sort of a version of a piledriver.”
Hunter continued, “And as I looked at it, I thought well if you held the guy’s arms, it would very clearly be a piledriver. So, it started out like that in my mind. I always thought that it was something very unique that I had never seen done before. It slowly evolved in to be hooking the arm behind the guy’s back and jumping up and having him come down full body face first.”
On Seeing Andre The Gaint Using Pedigree
Then Hunter went on to tell us how he discovered a clip of Andre the Gaint doing the Pedigree. “A few years ago, I saw a clip of Andre the Gaint doing a different version of it in Japan for the first time. So, its quite amazing for me see something like that I had never seen before,” Hunter said.
On Being Given a Different Finisher In WWE
Triple H explains that he was given a different finisher at the start of his WWE career and says, “When I came to WWE, they actually gave me a slightly different finisher- a version of the RKO. And I wasn’t enamored with it and I went back to Pedigree because it was what I have been using prior to that and I really like it.”
On Whether Seth Rollins Asked Him to Use Pedigree
Hunter told that Rollins actually asked his permission before starting to use the Pedigree as his finisher during their storyline in 2015-16. “He asked. He came to me and he was like how would you feel? Given the storyline and everything else happening around, how [do] you feel using the Pedigree? And I was like, you think that benefits you, please do. I would be honored. And it worked for him for a while. So, I was happy for him. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. So, if he thought, it would be meaningful to him, he could use it and get something out of it.”
